Man convicted of child porn offences has his jail term cut

A Timsbury man who admitted being sexually attracted to underage girls has seen his prison sentence cut in half by judges at the Court of Appeal.

The court's decision means Roger Adrian York, 61, will walk free from prison within the next month, having already served almost half of his sentence.

York, of Lansdown Crescent, was jailed for 12 months at Bristol Crown Court in April after pleading guilty to downloading indecent images of children.

But at the Court of Appeal this week, Mr Justice Griffith Williams and Mr Justice Owen said the sentence was too long and slashed it to six months.

York had shown genuine remorse and cooperated with police from the moment they visited his home, Mr Justice Griffith Williams told the court.

The 61-year-old was caught after accessing a website which had been compromised when indecent images of children were uploaded to it in March 2010.

Police investigations revealed that he had been one of more than 2,000 people to visit the site and his home was searched in June of last year.

During the search, he admitted using adult pornography, but said images of children had sometimes appeared and he had immediately deleted them.

His laptop was taken away and found to contain 374 indecent images, most of the least serious kind, but 25 in the top two categories of seriousness.

In his interview, York admitted he was sexually attracted to girls between the ages of 10 and 20, but said images of younger children repulsed him.

York, who was single and lived with his elderly parents, had a previous caution for indecently assaulting an underage girl in the 1970s.

His lawyers argued that the 12-month sentence was too tough and should be reduced to allow him an earlier release into the community.

Mr Justice Griffith Williams said: "The mitigating factors include, importantly, his immediate admissions, his plea at the earliest opportunity and, in our judgment, what is accepted to be his genuine remorse.

"Allowing the discount for the guilty plea, the appropriate sentence in respect of each of these charges is one of concurrent sentences of six months' imprisonment."

York has already served more than two months of his sentence and will be freed on licence no later than the half-way point of his six-month term.